Dinosaur Provincial Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located 220 kilometers (137 miles) east of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, or 48 kilometers (30 miles) northeast of Brooks. The park is found in the Red Deer River valley, which is known for its unique badland landscape and many dinosaur fossils. The park is famous for having one of the most valuable dinosaur fossil areas in the world. Fifty-eight dinosaur species have been found there, and more than 500 fossils have been collected and displayed in museums worldwide. The large collection of fossils, including tiny fern spores and large meat-eating dinosaurs, helped the park earn its UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1979.
Dinosaur Provincial Park Visitor Centre
The Dinosaur Provincial Park Visitor Centre shows displays about dinosaurs, fossils, and the park's geology and natural history. It includes a video theatre, a fossil preparation lab, and a gift shop. Summer programs are available for visitors.
John Ware's Cabin is a restored cabin from the early 1900s that was used by John Ware, an African-American cowboy and key person in Alberta's ranching history. The cabin is near the visitor centre and is open on some days during the summer.
History
The park was created on June 27, 1955, as part of Alberta's 50th anniversary celebration to protect the fossil beds. The first warden was Roy Fowler (1902–1975), a farmer and person who collected fossils as a hobby.
The park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site on October 26, 1979, because of its important badlands and riverside areas, as well as the fossils found there, which are significant worldwide.
Before 1985, fossils discovered in the park were sent to museums around the world for study and display, including the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, Ontario; the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Ontario; the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, New York; and the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois. This changed when the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology opened 100 kilometers up the river in Midland Provincial Park, near Drumheller.
Nature
The park protects a diverse ecosystem that includes three communities: prairie grasslands, badlands, and riverside cottonwoods. This ecosystem is surrounded by prairies but has unique features of its own. Coyotes often call out at dusk, as do nighthawks. Visitors may see cottontail rabbits, mule deer, and pronghorn in the park. Prairie rattlesnakes, bull snakes, and red-sided garter snakes also live there. During spring and summer, 165 bird species, including curlews and Canada geese, can be spotted. Some of the northernmost cactus species, such as Opuntia (prickly pear) and Pediocactus (pincushion), bloom in late June.
The sediments in the badlands of Dinosaur Provincial Park were formed over about 1.5 million years during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous epoch. These sediments belong to three geologic formations. The oldest layer is the terrestrial Oldman Formation, which is at the bottom of the sequence. Above it is the terrestrial Dinosaur Park Formation, which contains many well-preserved dinosaur skeletons. This formation was deposited between about 76.5 and 74.8 million years ago in floodplain and coastal plain environments by rivers flowing eastward and southeastward toward the Western Interior Seaway. The youngest layer is the marine Bearpaw Formation.
Dinosaur Provincial Park preserves a wide variety of freshwater vertebrates. Fish include sharks, rays, paddlefish, bowfins, gars, and teleosts. Amphibians include frogs, salamanders, and the extinct albanerpetontids. Reptiles include lizards, turtles, crocodilians, and the fish-eating Champsosaurus. Mammal fossils are rare and mostly consist of teeth and jaw fragments from small animals. These fossils represent placental, marsupial, and multituberculate mammals.
Plant fossils found in the park and surrounding areas include fern fronds, conifer leaves and wood, and leaves from Ginkgo, Cercidiphyllum, Platanus, and a plant similar to Pistia. A large collection of fossil pollen and spores has also been identified.
The park is home to a wide range of dinosaur species, including:
- Leptoceratops sp.
- Centrosaurus apertus
- Coronosaurus brinkmani
- Styracosaurus albertensis
- Pachyrhinosaurus
- Chasmosaurus belli, Chasmosaurus russelli
- Vagaceratops irvinensis
- Corythosaurus casuarius
- Gryposaurus notabilis, Gryposaurus incurvimanus
- Lambeosaurus lambei, Lambeosaurus magnicristatus
- Prosaurolophus maximus
- Parasaurolophus walkeri
- Panoplosaurus
- Edmontonia
- Euoplocephalus tutus
- Orodromeus
- Stegoceras
- Daspletosaurus torosus
- Gorgosaurus libratus
- Ornithomimus
- Struthiomimus
- Rativates
- new ornithomimid species A
- Chirostenotes pergracilis
- Chirostenotes collinsi
- Citipes elegans
- Dromaeosaurus albertensis
- Saurornitholestes
- Hesperonychus elizabethae
- ?new dromaeosaur species A
- ?new dromaeosaur species B
- Troodon
- new troodontid species A
Classification Uncertain
- Richardoestesia gilmorei
Birds such as Hesperornithiformes and a large pterosaur related to Quetzalcoatlus lived in the area. Stagodont marsupials, placentals, and multituberculate mammals also lived there.
Because it is the "world's most abundant and diverse dinosaur locality, yielding more than 166 vertebrate taxa, including 51 species of non-avian dinosaurs," the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS) added Dinosaur Provincial Park to its list of 100 "geological heritage sites" in October 2022. The organization defines an IUGS Geological Heritage Site as "a key place with geological elements and/or processes of international scientific relevance, used as a reference, and/or with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history."
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